


The Piper At The Gates of Dawn

by shadowolfhunter



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), Justified
Genre: Coping Mechanisms, Love and Loss, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowolfhunter/pseuds/shadowolfhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Danny Williams tries to come to terms with his brother's death, and his own feelings. Sometimes the people closest to you are not the ones who can help you through, sometimes it takes a stranger... apparently an asshole who doesn't really care. At this point Danny will take what he can get, because he's drowning under the weight of expectations and the well-meaning aid of the people he loves.</p><p>Three years ago, Raylan Givens lost everything; so Raylan's a bit of an asshole, but he has his reasons, and they ain't problems... Drink, get drunk, fall down, either by himself or by picking random fights with other assholes. He's angry, suspicious and no one's saviour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Walking it off

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from The Wind In The Willows. It seemed apt somehow.
> 
> I was thinking, what if Berkley won, and Raylan got sent to jail, after three years he's done his time, and since his career and his ex-wife have left him in the dust, with the last of his money, Raylan buys a ticket to anywhere.
> 
> He never intends to be someone's salvation, but he arrives just in time for Danny. A really weird-ass friendship is born.

Knowing the time and the circumstances of his brother’s passing was tearing Danny Williams apart. Informing his family had ripped so deep Danny doubted that the pieces of himself would ever truly come together again.

Time was supposed to be a great healer.

_Bullshit!_

But he had a daughter to protect, and a team to keep together, so Danny got up in the mornings and did what he was trained to do, and if he seemed so much more aloof these days it shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise goddammit because he really didn’t know what Steve and the others expected him to be.

Sometimes he just needed…

So he went for walks, alone. Curiously it was the beach that drew him the most. He would kick back and empty his head and just amble along, sand, sun, sea, sky, playing over and over in his head like a scratched record. He couldn’t say if it helped or not, it was just a time when he could tick over and not be that Danny Williams anymore. Maybe something like the Danny Williams he was when life was fresh, and he was young and there was promise in his future.

He knew that Steve was worried, and Chin and Kono too, and Grover thought he should be on medical leave, he knew that, but right now he needed two things: his job and for everyone to step back a bit.

Seriously? How did anyone think for half a second that sitting alone in his tiny little house, seeing everything that he had done wrong with his baby brother, every moment of the day, was going to help him deal and move on. Maybe some people needed that, but Danny needed life and movement before he went out of his mind.

So Danny parked his car and walked, and tried to empty his mind of everything that went through it.


	2. My Bags Are Packed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim visits Raylan in prison, the day before the cowboy is released...

Tim had stuck his neck out a long way for Raylan, but he figured Raylan was a friend, and with everything that happened Tim knew his former colleague was in need of a friend too.

Still it was a shock seeing the Harlan Cowboy in prison orange. It hadn’t been easy visiting him, Raylan was tough, closed-off, deeply suspicious and as angry as ever, he could be a real asshole too, but when it came down to it Tim knew that Raylan was glad of company.

Tim knew Raylan had some sort of asshole plan, which was essentially a raised middle finger to the world, so he arranged to see Raylan the day before he was released.

He just didn’t expect to feel that way as a bored guard brought Raylan in, cuffed and in chains.

“Jeezus!” Tim scowled, the guard shrugged and left.

“Ray…” Tim turned to his friend.

“Tim,” Raylan’s voice was tight, “thought I told you not to come.” He shot a suspicious look at the sniper.

“Well, maybe I didn’t listen.” Tim looked him over. The sentence had taken a severe toll on the older man, he was on the thin side of too lean, his tan had disappeared, and his hair was long and grown out of style. Raylan had swept it up in pert yorkie ponytail that surprised Tim. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise, it seemed like a two-finger salute to his past.

“So.” The cowboy’s face was scrunched up in suspicion, and Tim had no doubt that anger was going to be close behind.

Tim pulled the phone out of his pocket. “Look, I know you have this crazy idea, and I’m not going to try to talk you out of it, so… here,” he pushed the thing into Raylan’s cuffed hands, “it’s got my number programmed into it. In case.” He really didn’t know what else to say, and Raylan was standing like a statue.

Tim had no idea what to expect, but Raylan stood like a statue, looking down at the phone in his hands. Tim made an awkward motion with his hands, and Raylan looked him in the face for the first time.

It was the look of confusion and wonder on Raylan’s face which stopped him in his tracks. Raylan made a strange gesture, brought up short by the chain which attached his cuffs to his waist-chain. “I…” he bowed his head, “thank you.” It was gruff, but clearly heartfelt. Tim never meant to do it, but the emotion in Raylan’s voice, Tim stepped forward and hugged him.

It took a little while for him to get his own voice and emotions under control. “Call me.” He said, as the door opened and the guard came back for his prisoner. One last look between friends, and Raylan was led away.

***justified***

Tim’s gesture threw Raylan. The former marshal wanted to be angry. He held onto it, nurtured it and kept it under wraps for the three years of his incarceration.

So now he was getting out, he had no job, no wife, no daughter and basically no future. Raylan wasn’t about to hang around in the place that had finally dragged him down, just waiting for Berkley or Boyd Crowder to finish off what Art Mullen and Dan Grant had started. He had enough money for a one-way ticket and that was where he was going.

Rumours of Art wanting to see him on release had reached Raylan’s ears. Raylan had spent the last year of his sentence cultivating enough people to avoid that. Tim had arranged storage of Raylan’s few possessions, and that was where Raylan headed at first.

He pulled out an old bag, and began to sort through his clothes, jeans, tees, a few of his check shirts, some henleys, his suits he put aside, his two sport coats too, they would be no use where he was going.

The suits went to Goodwill, Raylan stuffed three hefty novels into his bag, and looked around. He put a box aside for Tim, sort of a thank you, god knew Raylan was bad with those kinds of words, until he came to the last item.

Raylan took it in his hands, remembering the day, long ago, when it became part of his life. Part of who he was. Something tightened in his gut and his nostrils flared at the headrush of pain that accompanied that thought. He placed it carefully in the box, perhaps Tim would give it a good home.

By the time he left the last box on Tim’s porch, it was time to set out for the airport, Raylan took one last look at the place he had one more reason to hate. Time to get out for good.

He slung his bag on his shoulder and set out for his ticket to paradise.

***justified***

Art had come back from Big Sandy with a scowl on his face, and a suspicious look at Tim.

Tim knew nothing. He ploughed through his day, head down, despite Rachel’s attempts to draw him out. He finished early, cried off with a rain check when Art tried to draw him out.

He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected, when he pulled into his driveway and saw the box on his porch. Whatever it was, it wasn’t that.

Tim bent and lifted the hat. Raylan’s hat, the cowboy hat the most visible symbol of who Raylan had been before he’d been drawn in and broken for something that Tim Gutterson was ninety-nine percent certain that Raylan hadn’t actually done.

He held the hat in his hands. Raylan was gone, the tenuous link of the phone that Tim had given him the only hope that Tim had left. Because if Raylan’s hat was in Tim’s hands, Raylan was never coming back.

He stood there on his porch, with the off-white Cowboy hat in his hands, surprised at how much the loss of Raylan hurt.


	3. On Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny makes a new friend.

Tim stared at the picture on his cell. Then shrugged. He’d been waiting three weeks for some kind of sign, text… whatever, that Raylan was alive and enjoying his freedom. He scowled a little, even now Raylan appeared determined to be an asshole.

He studied the picture of the pineapple. Machete buried in the ground next to the plant, a hand (Raylan’s, somehow he knew it was Raylan’s hand) holding the pineapple, much in the way a barbarian may have held a severed head.

On that joyless note, Tim stuffed his cell back in his pocket and reached for the next file.

Asshole

***h*50***

Danny Williams was a detective, it didn’t matter how far out of his own head Danny’s perambulations pulled him, as a detective he was always aware of his surroundings. That’s how law enforcement officers survived. By knowing where they were and who was around them.

After some two months of almost daily walks, he knew everyone in that tiny encampment by sight, so the tall, lean, dark and highly suspicious individual was duly noted.

Unlike other camp residents, the man never made any attempt to make contact, in fact he seemed to go out of his way to avoid contact, which naturally piqued Danny’s interest a little. 

Danny was a good detective, intuitive, instinctive, so he knew that the man was no threat, he read something almost wistful in the body language. Even if he had not been wearing his badge and gun, Danny was certain that the guy made him as a cop on the first sighting.

He really couldn’t have said specifically what was on his mind as he observed the new addition to the camp, at first it appeared that the man had one interest; to get as drunk as possible, though he didn’t seem to cause any trouble. And he seemed curiously good at evading Danny’s mostly unconscious attempts to get closer. After a couple of weeks this changed, apparently Danny’s mystery man now had a job. It was a couple of weeks after that that Danny spotted him at the end of the bar on the beach front, sitting in a corner. Alone.

Matt was weighing heavily on Danny’s mind that afternoon. It was hot outside, and Danny had taken his tie off as a concession to the oppressive heat, and Danny’s stranger was sitting on a bar stool, nursing something brown in a short glass which Danny took to be bourbon. Or whiskey. 

“Bourbon?” he said.

The stranger swayed back a little on his barstool. His brown eyes widened, and Danny picked up on the tension as the man spoke. “Blanton’s.”

Danny must have a looked a bit surprised at that because the stranger’s eyes narrowed, “paid for it with honest American dollars.” He snorted and Danny eyed him slightly incredulously, “I didn’t mean…”

“Y’did… but it’s okay. I’d…” he shrugged a shoulder and tipped his head back to study Danny over the rim of the glass.

Danny placed the accent firmly in Bluegrass country, but from the working side rather than wealth. It intrigued him, how did a guy from Kentucky end up in Hawaii? 

“This seat taken?”

That got him another hard suspicious glance, but the guy nodded reluctantly, “it’s a free country.”

Danny sat. Studied his wary companion. The guy was tall, maybe close to Steve’s height, lean, something about his sitting position, the way he kept a wary eye out, suggested that he was fully aware of his surroundings. The skin that was reddening slightly in the sun suggested that the man had been indoors for a long while, and was only now coming back into the sun. Up close, he was very handsome, and Danny couldn’t figure how a guy like him was living in a tent encampment on the edge of society.

It bore further investigation.

Danny ordered a drink.

“Been here long?” he said.

The brown eyes narrowed again, checking Danny out. “A while.” The tone was flat, giving nothing away. The hands gripped the glass a little tighter as though he expected someone to snatch it away from him.

“Come from?” said Danny quietly.

The man shifted on his seat at that, eyed Danny hard as though trying to assess his motive in asking. “Kentucky… as I’m sure you figured, Five-0.”

It was Danny’s turn to start a little. He didn’t think the guy was checking him out that closely. “Five-0?”

“It’s on y’badge, and I’ve heard what they call you.” The brown eyes held a mischievous sparkle for a moment, and despite the layer of suspicion Danny felt himself warming to his laconic companion.

Danny nodded, “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be.” There was a tinge of something ever so slightly bitter at that remark. The guy knocked back the last of his drink, and stood up.

“Been nice talkin’ to ya.” He sounded genuine, which was another surprise.

Danny looked up as the man moved past. “What’s your name?”

The guy looked slightly shocked, as though he thought Danny wouldn’t care enough to ask. “Call me Ray.” He said.

Danny looked back at his drink, “Nice to meet you, Ray.” He looked up, “Danny Williams.” He held out his hand, surprised when Ray took it.

In the few seconds their hands touched, Danny knew two things, one that Ray had the same gun callouses on his hand as Danny had, and that at some time in the past, Ray had been law enforcement.

He stored both pieces of information, and watched the guy leave. His stride bold and confident.

***h*50***

Steve was worried. Okay, rationally concerned. Danny’s little walks were common knowledge, half of the tent city on the North Shore knew him by name. For weeks Danny had been walking amongst the flotsam and jetsam of life, and shutting his best friend out.

Steve didn’t like that, one little bit. Especially as there wasn’t a damn thing he could really do about it. Danny was an adult, and very well able to take care of himself.

So Steve could do nothing. Except keep watch over Danny.

***h*50***

So Danny’s walks continued, only sometimes they now took in a bar, and a friend/not friend called Ray. Sometimes he was drunk off his ass, and surly with it, sometimes he was withdrawn and morose, and sometimes he just seemed plain sad, so Danny talked, and without meaning too, brought up the subject of Matt… and Danny’s daughter… and mostly Ray didn’t seem to give a shit, except sometimes when Danny mentioned his Grace, and a sadness stole over Ray’s features, and the hard-eyed stare softened into something regretful.

Then he’d hit the bourbon even harder, and would angrily tell Danny even when drunk off his ass that he was more than capable of getting home on his own.

Sometimes Danny would match him drink for drink, and they’d lean against each other, stupid drunk, and Ray would tell him something, in a roundabout sort of way, which didn’t make sense. Then Ray would be gone for two or three days after that, and Danny would nurse his hangover and his bad temper, and try not to snap at Steve, because none of this was Steve’s fault, and Danny would try and remember Ray’s drunken ramblings, because he was sure there was something important in there.


	4. It Could Happen To You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bizarre friendship starts to grow

A tiki doll. Tim glared at his phone. A truly hideous, replusive, tatty tiki doll, manufactured out of some kind of cheap plastic.

Looks like Chucky’s mother. Tim texted back.

A beep of an incoming message, and Tim had no clue what the combination of characters that Raylan had sent to him was actually meant to be. Figured that it was some kind of fuck you gesture.

The parade of ugly, broken, misshapen, weird things that Raylan found to photograph never seemed to be ending. But the pictures were more frequent. Even one blurry picture of two red-eyed drunks propping up each other and a bar. So Tim took some comfort that his asshole friend was still an asshole.

And Raylan was still alive, though the jury was out on his liver.

Tim Gutterson was pleased to find the irony in that.

***justified***

Danny had been working on Ray for weeks, he had no idea why that should be, but something about the guy just drew him in. So he nursed the hangover, and studied the blurry picture that his drunken friend had decided was such a good idea. Which had seemed such a good idea at the time.

At least he had a number for Ray.

“What’s your new friend’s name?” Steve leaned against the door frame. Trying very hard not to show how worried he was about his best friend.

Danny shrugged a little, it wasn’t exactly a secret. “Ray.”

“Did it ever occur to you that Ray might be a danger to you?” Shit, Steve had not meant to lead with that, it would get Danny all defensive.

For a few seconds Danny just sat, dumbstruck that his friend was even going there. Then anger just broke over him like a wave. “Well, so far, he’s had nearly three months to do something and he hasn’t Steven. Exactly how long did we have with your buddy Nick, before everything went to hell?” He waved his hands. “Three hours if I remember rightly.”

“Matt…” Steve trailed off miserably, aware that he had just pushed exactly the wrong button.

“Don’t… even… You do not get to go there right now.” Danny looked so punched out by that comment, Steve felt something snap in the region of his heart. Every painful, spiteful, angry thing crowded into Danny’s brain then, he snatched his car keys from his desk, and stormed past Steve, who was trying to pull himself together.

“Well that was smart.”

Steve pushed a hand through his short-cropped dark hair, then waved it somewhat helplessly. “I…”

Chin crossed his arms, “did it occur to you that maybe Danny gets something from his time with this guy?”

Steve shook his head.

Chin put his hand on the SEAL’s shoulder. “Just because Danny seems to be spending time with this guy doesn’t mean that the guy has it in for Danny, or that Danny loves you less. Maybe he’s getting something from this deal.”

“I just wish he’d come to me, Chin.” 

Chin looked at the Commander’s sad face, and sighed inwardly. Danny loved Steve, but this new guy Chin suspected was almost Danny’s penance for his brother and Steve needed a little patience and faith. Or he was going to ruin what he had with Danny, and Chin really did not want to find out what a rudderless Steve without his Danny would be like.

***h*50***

Danny was furious. After everything they had been through, Steve was questioning Danny’s judgement. Maybe Danny had pulled back a bit from some things, but he knew with a cop’s instinct that Ray had been at some time law enforcement, and that the angry, moody, suspicious man meant Danny no harm.

Himself, well the jury was kinda out on that one, and Danny had come close twice to arresting him for his own good. The guy drank like he had hollow legs. 

The irony, once drunk, with nothing to fight with, Ray was good company. He never pushed, and he certainly never offered up any details about himself, but he listened to Danny. He said things in a gentle respectful tone, more than once Danny found himself spilling more than he intended. He didn’t try to gallop in and fix it, and Danny found he needed that. Somewhere at the back of Danny’s mind the bizarre thought occurred that Ray would have made a great cop.

Danny drove, and sighed. Pushed a hand through his hair. He needed Steve too. He loved Steve, he needed to put back the pieces of his life and get back to the man he loved before everything went to hell. But he also needed this. Whatever it was.

He glanced at his watch and sighed. Ray would still be at his job in the pineapple fields. Despite being a transplant like Danny, apparently Ray actually liked pineapple.

In fact, after weeks of probing, all Danny had really discovered, apart from Ray’s copious capacity for alcohol, was that Ray worked in the pineapple fields, liked pineapple and brought the over ripe ones back to the tent camp, which he shared around, the guy also liked vanilla ice-cream, grudgingly accepted shave ice and he sent picture texts of bizarre things to the only number programmed in his phone on a regular basis.

He was a grumpy enigma wrapped up in a terse mystery. Danny figured that he would get to the bottom of it all. It would just take time.

Danny pulled the Camero into a parking space and headed in the general direction of where he would usually catch up with Ray, so he was early this time. He could have a soft drink while waiting and clear his head.

Of course, it wasn’t going to work like that. He was nearing the end of the path, the bar was just beyond the next alley, when a man stepped out from the alleyway in front of him.

Danny’s instincts went into hyperdrive, and he reached for his weapon, only to realise he had locked it into the Camero’s lock box before he left PD.

The guy in front of him was big, and kinda stupid looking, but the rat-face guy that slunk out behind his big compatriot was just plain mean-looking, and Danny was aware of a third guy on the periphery of his vision. He took up a fighting stance as rat-face spoke.

“Hey, haole, nice wheels.”

Danny could have said ‘Five-0’ and shown them his badge, which was still clipped to his belt, but he figured since they had to have seen it, this was one of those times he was going to have to take a stand.

“What’s it to ya?” he growled, squaring off to them, he was going to get one chance.

“HEY.” Snapped a voice somewhere just behind the big behemoth, the guy wasn’t smart enough or maybe not experienced enough, he glanced behind him. A fist connected with the side of his head, and he reeled.

Rat-face shot a look behind him.

“Didn’t order assholes with my bourbon.” Danny didn’t waste a second on wondering why Ray was there, there were two guys in front of him, okay the big one was staggering, but he was coming back, and there was the guy behind him who started to charge. They were three against two, and Danny spun to face the threat, he threw up an arm, clothes-lining the goon behind him, only to have a fist slam into his body, punches were raining down, and one connected hard with the side of his head.

Danny crumpled to the ground, as he was fading out, he heard a distinct yelp of pain, something connected with his head a second time and as he blacked out he heard sirens.

***h*50***

Steve was beside himself. Danny was hurt, and this was exactly what he had feared. Right now he was going to tear the island apart to find this Ray, but only after he had word that Danny was going to be alright.


	5. Finding Raylan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actions have some very unpleasant and stressful consequences.

Raylan ran. The sirens were closing in, and Danny would be fine. He, on the other hand, was not so fine. He’d never seen the knife until it was almost too late, as it plunged into his side just about the gunshot wound that he’d sustained three and a half years before. He’d managed to deflect it a little, and he was nearly certain it was just into the meat, rather than any internal organs, but getting stabbed hurt like a sunuvabitch.

He was angry, mostly with himself, shouldn’t have gotten involved, but Danny the cop had been decent to him, which wasn’t really in Raylan’s wheelhouse, and three against one… Raylan had to haul the odds back. They offended his sense of justice.

He managed to put enough distance between himself and the fight, then slunk between the rows of tents until he could slither back into his own space. He slumped onto his camp bed and pulled up his tee shirt.

Damn.

***justified***

DAMN.

Tim Gutterson held himself perfectly still. Breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm the flash of white-hot rage that rocketed through him when the news came down.

Agent Berkley had been caught red-handed handing off information to Theo Tonin. He was in Tonin’s pocket the whole time, all across the land, cases where Berkley had even been a vague rumour were spontaneously imploding left and right.

And Raylan’s case. His conviction. The three damn years he’d spent incarcerated, his reputation destroyed, everything lost.

And here was Art, and Raylan’s old boss, Dan Grant, asking Tim what he knew of Raylan’s whereabouts.

SHIT.

After everything that had been done, he was going to have to talk to Raylan first.

He excused himself, said he was going to clear his head, get a coffee. 

When he reached the street he took out his phone and dialled. Waited for Raylan to pick up.

***h*50***

Raylan slumped in the chair, he could barely hold himself up, his hands were cuffed behind him, and the strain was pulling his side and the makeshift dressing that covered the hole in his side.

It hadn’t taken them long to find him, dazed and in pain, Raylan offered no resistance as the big officer dragged him out of his tent. The guy, McGarrett, according to the label on his tac vest, lobbed Raylan’s phone to a tall, beautiful Hawaiian woman who caught it neatly.

The confused former marshal figured it wouldn’t be long before they figured out everything, he hurt, and he was too tired to fight the inevitable.

***h*50***

Kono extracted the phone’s information, which was sparse to say the least. Two numbers, one was Danny’s, a bunch of sad and strange photographs including a blurry one of Danny with Ray at some beach-front bar.

She was about to call Chin and Steve to the table when the man himself stalked in. “Steven!”

Kono and Chin actually flinched.

Danny was pissed.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Danny barked at Steve, the SEAL was holding on to his temper with an effort. “Ray didn’t hurt me, he tried to save me.”

“Danny, he was there, and what do you really know about him?” Kono could read the confusion and hurt on Steve’s face. Their boss really loved Danny, and had imprinted on his Jersey detective like a duckling in a rainstorm.

Some gear seemed to have clicked in Danny’s head, because the detective actually dialled back the aggression. “I know he didn’t hurt me, and if he hadn’t stepped in when he did… I might not be here at all.”

He stepped forward. The tension in his body clear to all, this was Meka all over again thought Kono.

There was a moment of pure silence.

The cell phone on the table in front of Kono rang.

***h*50***

“Hello.”

Tim was startled. “Who is this?” he demanded.

“Officer Kono Kalakua, Five-0. Who is this?”

A cold feeling swept over Tim, “Deputy United States Marshal Tim Gutterson, ma’am. Can I speak to Raylan?”

***h*50***

Danny entered interrogation trailed by a protesting Steve.

Ray was slumped in the chair, arms over the back, cuffed. It did not take a genius to see he was hardly there.

“Jeezus… Steve!!”

Ray looked up, “Danny.” He murmured, and slid in a graceless heap onto the floor.

Hands reached out to him, and he was barely aware that the cuffs were removed.

***h*50***

Tim raked a very agitated hand through his hair as Officer Kono laid out the story as they knew it.

“I know Raylan, he’s a friend and colleague, he’s been through a really tough time, but he would never do that.” He could hear the sound of running feet behind the young woman. “What is that?”

“It seems your friend is hurt.” She was stammering a little, and Tim felt no little panic at the obvious stress levels in her voice.

“I am on my way. Ray-Ray’s a good guy, he’s had troubles, but please take care of him until I can get there.” She sounded really shaken about it, “don’t hurt him.” Tim’s voice caught. Raylan had been through so much, to have it all fall down now when he might be cleared, was too much to think about.

He headed back up the stairs. He was packing and on his way to Hawaii, and they were not going to stop him.

Tim really hadn’t been there enough for Raylan when he was convicted of something Tim was now certain he hadn’t done. He wasn’t going to fail his friend this time around.

***justified***

Art Mullen didn’t quite believe the family emergency that his young sniper came up with. One look at the strained face, and the pallor, convinced him that he was going to let this one go.

Every Marshal instinct that Art possessed said that Tim was going to Raylan. The old Chief Deputy had every intention of following.

Three and a half years ago Art Mullen had written off one of his brightest and toughest deputies on the say-so of a Fibbie that he wouldn’t have trusted an inch under normal circumstances. But so much of Raylan’s life was a murky mystery, with the odds stacked hard against him, so much of Art’s anger lead from Raylan’s secretive nature. It wasn’t a hard step to believe he might have done the things the apparent evidence said he had.

***justified***

His name was Raylan Givens. He was a former Deputy US Marshal, and there was every chance the conviction that had destroyed his career and incarcerated him for three years was a bogus one.

He could have left Danny to get beaten to a pulp. He didn’t have to step in, in fact, from what Kono had dug up, Raylan would have been justified in helping them out, in Danny’s opinion.

He’d stepped in, saved Danny from worse than a few bruises and a bump on the head and had been knifed for his trouble.

The knife was dirty, and the wound improperly treated for several hours, Raylan was lying in a hospital bed, raging infection, high fever and just the suggestion of the beginning of sepsis. Danny owed the guy, so he was going to stay by his side until his friend, Deputy Gutterson, got there.

In the meantime, Danny and Steven were going to have yet another conversation about over-the-top force.


End file.
